Happy 10th Birthday: Six amazing facts about Twitter

Tech Talk

AFP

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Twitter is not just for journalists, activists and celebrities but has been a tool for a variety of scientific research.

Researchers have found that analysing tweet patterns can offer insights into political leanings as well as the spread of disease. A recent study showed that tweet patterns revealed the extent of damage from Hurricane Sandy in 2012, making it "a viable platform for preliminary rapid damage assessment in the chaotic time immediately after a disaster."

Another study showed how Twitter data captured in the early stage of the Ebola outbreak in Africa could serve as a real-time tool for monitoring the spread of the disease, demonstrating "the usefulness of Twitter mining to inform public health education."